The state legislature's Republican leadership is calling for a seven-billion-dollar increase in public school funding. Monday's House proposal offers to increase K-12 public education funding 17 percent if lawmakers can lessen the use of property taxes for school funding and reduce the need for wealthy school districts to subsidize poorer ones.
Under the proposal, the public education budget in Texas would increase to more than 70-billion-dollars from all sources, including local property taxes plus state and federal funding.